ASSYRIAN COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING IN FAIRFIELD CITY GREG GOW WITH ASHUR ISAAC PAUL GORGEES MARLIN BABAKHAN KARDONIA DAAWOD © 2005 CENTRE FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH AND ASSYRIAN WORKERS’ NETWORK ISBN 1 74108 112 2 PUBLISHED BY THE CENTRE FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY CENTRE FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY PARRAMATTA CAMPUS EBA LOCKED BAG 1797 PENRITH SOUTH DC 1797 NSW AUSTRALIA www.uws.edu.au/ccr DESIGN: ANNA LAZAR, ODESIGN PRINTING: UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY COVER MODEL: JOSEPH SOLOMON Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY III ABOUT THE AUTHORS IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS V LIST OF ACRONYMS VI Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 1 Assyrians: a global community ............................................................................... 3 2 Fairfi eld City: Australia’s Assyrian centre .............................................................. 6 2.1 Perceptions of Fairfi eld 2.2 Settlement history 3 Statistical profi le of the community ....................................................................... 10 3.1 Population, origin and migration 3.2 Family composition and age distribution 3.3 Religious affi liations 3.4 Language and education 3.5 Labour force status 3.6 Distribution by suburbs and tenure type 4 Research approach ................................................................................................... 13 5 Assyrian organisations and community infrastructure ....................................... 15 5.1 Organisations based in Fairfi eld City 5.2 Churches: the hub of the community 5.3 Building organisational partnerships 6 Building social capital within families .................................................................... 21 6.1 Defi ning social capital 6.2 Family life and social capital 6.3 Family diffi culties 6.4 Intergenerational parent/child dynamics 6.5 Fathers and young men 6.6 Gender attitudes and domestic violence 6.7 Trauma and mental health 6.8 Financial problems Table of Contents 7 Young people ............................................................................................................ 29 7.1 Youth perceptions of their community. 7.1.1 Strengths 7.1.2 Weaknesses 7.2 Key Issues 7.2.1 English language skills 7.2.2 Safety and recreation 7.2.3 Youth participation in Assyrian organisations 8 Integrating mainstream, settlement and ethno-specifi c services .................... 36 8.1 Capacity Building Forum feedback 8.2 Barriers to mainstream service access 8.2.1 Defi ciency of Assyrian cultural expertise 8.2.2 Preference for ethno-specifi c services 8.2.3 Lack of integration between mainstream and ethno-specifi c services 8.3 Steps to effective ‘mainstreaming’ 8.4 The Assyrian Workers’ Network 9 Identity and cultural issues for service providers ............................................... 42 9.1 Identity and difference 9.2 Misrecognition and trauma 10 Additional challenges and service gaps ............................................................... 45 10.1 Employment . 10.2 Health 10.3 Information provision 10.4 Housing 10.5 English language skills, translating and interpreting services 10.6 Seniors 10.7 Education 11 Recommendations .................................................................................................. 50 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 55 References ...................................................................................................................... 57 ASSYRIAN COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING IN FAIRFIELD CITY Executive Summary This report relates community capacity building to the Assyrian community living in Fairfi eld City. It provides a snapshot of the community at a particular point in time and suggests directions for their future success. The report is the outcome of a twelve month project which surveyed the Assyrian community and mainstream service providers in the Fairfi eld area during 2004/05. It considers the broader Assyrian community, which includes new arrivals and those with a longer presence in Australia. The Assyrians currently constitute the second largest ethnic community within the Fairfi eld City Local Government Area (LGA) and lack equity in a range of key areas, including education, employment, housing and health. There are four overarching themes running through the report. The fi rst is that there needs to be a strengthening of the integration between settlement, mainstream, and ethno-specifi c service providers with shared Assyrian client-bases in Fairfi eld City. The second concerns the lack of knowledge about Assyrians—their language, culture and history. Many service providers simply do not know who Assyrians are and how best to deliver programs to them. The third concerns the need for a new culture of partnerships to develop among Assyrian organisations, which enables different groups to work together on shared problems. The fourth, is the importance of young people to the Assyrian community’s future success. The key issues impacting the community are described, along with the factors preventing it from moving ahead in terms of presenting a unifi ed front to funding bodies and service providers. The discussion also highlights service gaps and recommends steps to service providers and government stakeholders for future capacity building. The report begins by providing information about the Assyrians’ immigration backgrounds, their lives in Fairfi eld City, and demographic profi le with the LGA. The discussion then addresses three aspects of the Assyrian community: cultural and church organisations and their provision of community infrastructure and leadership; the signifi cance of families for the building of social capital; and the perceptions and needs of Assyrian young people. Consideration is then given to service providers and the challenges of integrating mainstream, settlement and ethno-specifi c services. Identity and cultural issues for service providers are then explored, and service gaps documented. Following the main body of the report are a series of recommendations for capacity building both within the community and among service providers and government departments working with them. III ASSYRIAN COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING IN FAIRFIELD CITY About the Authors Greg Gow is the lead author of this report, which he wrote while an Australian Research Council (ARC) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Cultural Research (CCR), University of Western Sydney. He has published extensively on the cultural dimensions of refugee settlement in Australia. In October 2005, he commenced a position with the NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS). Ashur Isaac is a youth worker with twenty years experience developing and managing therapeutic programs for children and young people in a range of contexts. He currently works with the Assyrian Australian Association on community development and enhancing service delivery for Assyrian youth in Fairfi eld City. Paul Gorgees studied at the University of Al-Mustansiriyah/Baghdad and worked with the UNHCR and the Red Cross in Northern Iraq before arriving in Australia in 1994. Then for fi ve years he assisted asylum seekers with the Australian Red Cross. Since 2001 he has been employed as a Community Settlement Worker, and is now the Coordinator of the Assyrian Resource Centre located in Fairfi eld. Marlin Babakhan studied social welfare at the University of Baghdad. She later practised as a counsellor in the Family Court (Iraq). In Australia she continued working in welfare services. Throughout the 1990s she worked with the Assyrian Australian Association, assisting newly arrived migrant and refugee populations who were settling in the Fairfi eld LGA. Since 2001, she has been a Multicultural Health Worker with Fairfi eld Multicultural Health Service. Kardonia Daawod was born in Iraq and migrated to Australia in 1995. She is a qualifi ed scientist and teacher who currently works in the Fairfi eld LGA as Health Education Offi cer with Karitane. Kardonia has extensive experience working with Assyrian families. IV ASSYRIAN COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING IN FAIRFIELD CITY Acknowledgements This report is in many ways a large collaborative effort. There are various people to thank, who assisted and supported us throughout the process of researching and writing. Firstly, we wish to thank the University of Western Sydney (UWS) for funding the enterprise under their Regional and Community Engagement Grants Scheme. Kim Leevers greatly assisted our application. Secondly, the partner organisations: the Assyrian Workers’ Network (AWN) for their joint management of the project and unwavering support; the Assyrian Australian Association (AAA) for its generous in-kind support, and the Fairfi eld Multicultural Health Service. And the Fairfi eld MRC for their assistance with publishing costs. Thanks also go to Armen Stephan who assisted the project’s development and contributed through AWN meetings. Susan Homeh provided important administrative support and assistance to the project team. Alongside Susan, Agatha Florestino and Georgia Bililis from UWS collected data from various workshops and interviews. They provided the project with enthusiasm and support. We are also thankful to Anna Lazar for her excellent job preparing the report for printing and meeting tight deadlines. Finally, we are indebted to a large number of